The Western Nebraska Community College volleyball team finished the WyoBraska shootout with a perfect record after sweeping past Garden City Community College and Sheridan College Saturday at Cougar Palace.

                WNCC recorded nine ace serves including four from Kaylee Spreier in dropping Garden City 25-15, 25-12, 25-12. The Cougars finished off the tournament with a five ace serve performance from Fabiana Andrade in a 25-10, 25-14, 25-19 win over Sheridan College.

                It was the third tournament of the season the Cougars finished 4-0 as WNCC improves to 20-3 on the season.

                "We played really good and we executed things well and I was proud of ourselves as a team," Spreier said. "We are starting to gel, figuring out how each other plays and learning everything. We are getting better as the season is going on."

                The six wins this week pushes the Cougars' win streak to seven games. Spreier said they played pretty good this week, which included wins over No. 20 Casper on Tuesday and No. 5 Northwest Wyoming on Friday.

                "We played pretty good this week," she said. "I think we did well in each of the games. We did get down but we called timeouts and pulled it together and executed how it should."

                More importantly, the Cougars never went five games in the six games this week, something they have been doing each weekend. A big key to that is the team is starting to mesh as a unit.

                "We work hard in practice and we are getting better each game as the season goes along. All these games helps us prepare for nationals," she said.

                Saturday, it wasn't one particular player that stood out, but it was wins by committee. That is something that is becoming beneficial to this team.

                "Different people are starting to contribute," Spreier said. "Everybody has something that they are better at and we are finding ways to put that all together. We are finding lineups that work."

                Against Garden City, WNCC had eight players register kills in the match, led by Shaney Tiumalu with 11 kills, Barbara Rabanal with nine, and Lara Picht with seven. Spreier and Santanna Mitchell also recorded four kills.

                What won the match for the Cougars, though, was their serving with nine aces. Spreier had the big service run. Spreier started things with a kill to make the score 18-12. She then had eight seven straight points, including three aces. She even had an ace to end the match.

                Spreier said her focus was just to get the ball over the net, and she accomplished that, including an ace serve that fell at the attacking line.

                "I was just trying to push and make sure I got it over the net," she said. "The only thing I was thinking about is getting it over the net and placing it where they hopefully couldn't get it."

                Spreier finished the match with nine points and four aces. Rabanal also had a big service game, tallying nine points and three aces. Andrade finished with six points, Tiumalu and Keala Kaio-Perez each with four points, and Mitchell and Picht with two points.

                Kaio-Perez finished with nine digs followed by Picht with five, Andrade with three, and Tiumalu with two. Andrade had 31 set assists.

                WNCC was impressive in the first two games against Sheridan behind strong serving once again. This time Rabanal tallied 10 points and two aces, while Andrade had nine points and four aces. Picht also tallied five points and Tiumalu had four points.

                WNCC easily won game one 25-10 and then used a four-point service run late in game two by Rabanal to win that game 25-14.

                Game three was tight as Sheridan battled the Cougars, holding a 16-13. That was when Rabanal knocked home a kill and then served six points for a 20-16 lead. WNCC kept strong as back-to-back kills from Jady Gerotto with 11 kills followed by Picht with nine and Rabanal with eight. Tiumalu finished with five kills.

                Picht finished with three blocks, while Rabanal and Kennedy Cyza each had two blocks.

                Rabanal led the team with eight digs, while Andrade, Picht, and Katy Ernest each had five. Kaio-Perez finished with four digs and Mitchell collected two.

                WNCC, 20-3, will have just one match next week when they travel to McCook Community College. They will then be off for 10 days until Oct. 1 when they host Otero Junior College. Spreier said they need the break to rest up for the final month of the season.

                "We finally have a weekend off," she said. "That will help us to recover and rest up. We have some nagging injuries. A lot of people have bumps and bruises. This weekend we will be able to rest them up."

                WNCC was just one of two teams to finish the WyoBraska Invite undefeated. Laramie County Community College also went unbeaten, while four teams finished the tournament 3-1 in Utah State-Eastern, Seward County, Northwest Wyoming, and Casper.

                Eastern Wyoming College, after going 2-0 on Friday, finished the tournament at 2-2 in falling to Seward County 25-19, 25-15, 25-19 and then Northeast (Nebraska) Community College in five games 25-22, 24-26, 25-18, 19-25, 15-12.

                The rest of Saturday results include at WNCC, Utah State-Eastern over Sheridan 25-17, 25-22, 26-24; Northwest College over Garden City 25-15, 25-17, 25-22; NJC over Williston 25-22, 25-13, 28-26; Utah State-Eastern over Casper 22-25, 25-16, 26-24, 25-19; Northwest over NJC 25-16, 26-24, 25-23; and Casper over Williston 25-15, 25-16, 23-25, 25-23.

                Tournament scores at EWC included Western Wyoming over McCook 25-11, 25-18, 25-13; Northeast Nebraska over Central Wyoming 25-12, 25-20, 19-25, 20-25, 15-12; LCCC over Trinidad 25-17, 25-17, 25-18; Western Wyoming over Trinidad 25-14, 25-14, 25-21; Sheridan over Trinidad 23-25, 19-25, 25-9, 25-13, 15-8; and LCCC over McCook 25-19, 25-13, 25-22.